Miyamoto Musashi, the Japanese swordsman of unparalleled skill, is known around the world today. Yet his life still poses a large number of important questions that remain elusive: Where was he born? Who was his father? Who was his mother? Who were his children? Who were his benefactors? In which battles did he fight? With whom did he duel? Where did he live? Who were his friends? Where did he travel? And where is his grave?

Up until recently, there were only few original sources to which the English reader could turn to answer these questions. Indeed, even in his Book of Five Rings Musashi hardly touches on any of these questions.

With William de Lange’s translations of all the extant Japanese sources on this enigmatic Japanese swordsman in his groundbreaking three-part The Real Musashi series, the English reader now has at his disposal a completely new range of sources. Yet they still present a highly complex, at times even bewildering array of alternative perspectives and narratives.

This compact and fully illustrated guide brings order in that chaos by carefully reconstructing the narrative of Musashi’s life. Through a number of clearly defined themes it addresses the hitherto unanswered questions based on the original Japanese sources.